The low tech fix

Today I began what I was convinced would be the maddening task of further troubleshooting my PC. I pulled out the ram and video card, but nothing changed.

Then I noticed a bunch of the tiny little headers on the motherboard weren’t fully plugged in. How they came unplugged, I don’t know. Even more mysteriously, the honking big header for the front USB ports was completely disconnected and sitting well away from where it would normally be plugged in. All of this was strange, but easily fixed by just making sure everything was nice and secure.

I pressed the power button…and the PC powered up without issue. Windows didn’t even report a bad shutdown or anything. Everything is working again without any parts having to be replaced, and with minimal downtime.